Translations, however, to make them useful, should be adapted and remodelled,
leaving out much that would be unsuitable to an Oriental, and supplying much
that would be superfluous to a European reader.1 We would urge this
duty, not upon our Indian Society alone, but upon the learned of England.
Islam is not, like the religion of the Hindoo, a subject foreign to the
European; for twelve centuries it has been his near neighbour; it effected a
footing in Spain and Italy, and it now reigns in Turkey; from the stores of
its learning was the darkness of the Middle Ages first enlightened; and our
libraries are full of learned and controversial works in defence and in
defiance of both religions. Why then have we not more instances of our
countrymen treading in the steps of Dr. Lee? The stimulus of a prize is
sufficient to entice the learned inmates of Oxford and Cambridge to combat the
remote and dimly distinguished tenets of the Hindoo. And shall not the
interest and proximity of the subject, its close connection with Europe, and
the ample resources at hand for obtaining a knowledge of the principles of
Islam, be sufficient to tempt our learned countrymen to come forward in the
Mohammedan contest; and thus, without the labour or the banishment of
